As the Anglican World Turns

From Huffington-

While its viewership won't come close to that other famous British drama "Downton Abbey," we are about to begin a new season of the real life soap opera we've come to think of "As the Anglican World Turns."

The new season is being launched with the January 11-16 meeting of the Anglican Primates - an unfortunate term for the heads of the 38 autonomous churches that make up the Anglican Communion. The Archbishop of Canterbury has called the meeting to bring together leaders from around the world-wide communion to prayerfully consider critical issues including religiously motivated violence, the protection of children and vulnerable adults, the environment, and human sexuality.

And therein -- as they say - lies the rub.

More here-


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-susan-russell/as-the-anglican-world-tur_b_8948106.html?utm_hp_ref=religion&ir=Religion

3 Bishops, ACI Call for Email Investigation

Allegations of conduct unbecoming a member of the clergy will be lodged by three bishops against a member of the national Executive Council and the president of Integrity in response to the misappropriation and publication of private correspondence.

Bishops John Howe of Central Florida, Mark Lawrence of South Carolina, and D. Bruce MacPherson of Western Louisiana, along with other leaders of the Anglican Communion Institute (ACI), are concerned about a possible “dirty tricks” campaign waged against the ACI by the Rev. Canon Mark Harris, the Rev. Susan Russell, and an unidentified member on the staff at the Diocese of Washington.

Priests “publishing the private emails of bishops is a matter of grave pastoral disorder,” said the Very Rev. Philip Turner, former dean of Berkeley Divinity School at Yale and a member of the ACI. The publication of the correspondence also may violate laws concerning attorney-client privilege, Bishop MacPherson said.

The dispute involves the misappropriation of emails and a draft of an ACI paper titled “Bishops’ Statement on the Polity of The Episcopal Church.” Most of the private correspondence contained a standard legal disclaimer noting that the information was privileged and intended solely for those to whom it was addressed.

On April 21 Canon Harris published snippets from the bishops’ statement and 13 email messages exchanged among the ACI leaders and their lawyer. The following day, Ms. Russell published the bishops’ statement along with extracts from the emails and the Washington Blade, a secular gay-interest newspaper, published an expurgated version of the email exchange.

“Since when do we have priests publishing the private correspondence of bishops to each other?” Bishop Howe asked.

Writing on an internet blog maintained by Integrity Ms. Russell applauded the “outing” of the ACI because she said it was advocating an “unprecedented power grab by anti-gay bishops.”

A spokesman for the ACI said the organization did not contemplate pursuing civil or criminal remedies for the misappropriation of the private documents. One of the bishops said that formal ecclesiastical charges have not been preferred against either Ms. Russell or Canon Harris, but the matter has been brought to the attention of Bishop J. Jon Bruno of Los Angeles, which is where Ms. Russell is canonically resident, and the Bishop Wayne Wright, where Canon Harris resides.

Bishop MacPherson said it was a sad commentary of the current state of the church that such correspondence would be published, but he was more distressed by the damage the leaked information had done to the point the 14 bishops who signed the statement were trying to make.

“My prayer is that we will be able to find our way back as a church to following the constitution and canons that have been handed down to us,” he said. “The current leadership is moving away in another direction.”

http://www.livingchurch.org/news/news-updates/2009/5/27/3-bishops-aci-call-for-email-investigation

another piece here-

http://www.religiousintelligence.co.uk/news/?NewsID=4505

Report on Rowan's Final Address

London Times on the end of the Lambeth Conference. Susan Russell (hysterical gay activist) chimes in with her two cents and Bishop Venables continues to poach-

"However, early indications from other provinces in Africa and Asia are that the illicit consecrations will continue. In addition, Bishop Gregory Venables, the Primate of the Southern Cone, who has taken an entire US diocese into his province, is expected to continue poaching conservative parishes and dioceses from the US. Liberals in the US are determined to fight the moratorium on gay consecrations and same-sex blessings agreed by the Episcopal Church’s convention two years ago.
The Rev Susan Russell, of the gay lobby group Integrity, said: “It is not going to change anything on the ground in California. We bless same-sex relationships and will continue to do so.”"

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article4452635.ece